Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#137 :: Monday 20 July 2015

Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#137
Monday 20 July 2015
A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs
The contents do not necessarily represent the views of IERES or the George Washington University.
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RUSSIA

1. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Culture of waste recycling slowly beginning to emerge in Russia.
2. Deutsche Welle: Russia less-than-charitable toward charities. Tough economic times and a law that labels organizations that receive funds from overseas as foreign agents is taking a toll on charities, writes Fiona Clark in Moscow.
3. www.rt.com: A glimpse inside Russia’s orphanage system.
4. TASS: Will ghost towns like US Detroit appear in Russia?
5. Moskovskiy Komsomolets: Former Kremlin internal policy chief interviewed on Putin’s role in politics. (Oleg Morozov)
6. http://readrussia.com: Mark Adomanis, Putinism Starts to Eat Its Own Children.
7. Moscow Times: Poverty Hits ‘Critical’ Level – Government.
8. Moscow Times: Russian Government Failing to Stem Rising Poverty.
9. Wall Street Journal: Ariel Cohen, How Russia Could Become a Food Superpower.
10. Business New Europe: Chris Weafer, Weak ruble is the ‘new norm’
11. Russia Direct: To innovate, Russia needs to unchain itself from state control. Dominique Fache, the administrator of Sophia Antipolis Foundation, a prominent French technological park, talked to Russia Direct about Western sanctions on Russia and the Kremlin’s struggle to modernize and diversify its economy.
12. Politkom.ru: Russian commentator sees big business consolidating around Putin. (Konstantin Yemelyanov)
13. Australian Financial Review: How Russia proved to be the best BRICS bet in 2015.
14. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Controversial new law on ‘right to be forgotten’ stirs debate in Russia.
15. Moscow Times: Pyotr Romanov, Russia Can’t Be Managed With Western Rules.
16. Moscow Times: Russian Military Struggling to Modernize.
17. Moscow Times: The Public’s Top Picks for the Pedestal on Lubyanka Square.
18. Christian Science Monitor: Fred Weir, Amid Kremlin-NATO tensions, what mood in Russia’s European ‘spearhead’? The Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad is home to a major naval base that weighs heavily in both Russian and Western military thinking.
19. Sputnik: US Media Dreams About ‘Siberian Nationalism’ Breaking Up Russia.
20. Moscow Times: Mark Galeotti, Russia Is Not the Threat the West Thinks It Is.
21. The Nation: James Carden, Is Russia Really ‘the Greatest Threat’ to US National Security? Ashton Carter, Victoria Nuland, and Gen. Joseph Dunford want us to think so.
22. Moscow Times: Vladimir Frolov, Obama and Putin Are Tied to Each Other.
23. Moscow Times: Pascal Lorot and Arnaud Dubien, Europe and Russia Must Start Building Bridges.
24. Russia Direct: Iranian nuclear deal for Russia: victory or failure? Russia Direct interviewed experts to shed light on the implications of the Iranian nuclear deal for Russia-Iran relations and the situation in the Middle East.
25. The National Interest: Evan Gottesman, A Russian Role in Central Asia That America Can Live With.
26. The National Interest: Tedo Japaridze, Georgia’s Aspiration: Living with, but Not in, Russia. “Loudly attacking Russia at every turn may be good politics for some, but it is bad and dangerous policy for Georgia.”
27. The Unz Review: The Saker, The Meaning of the US Saber-Rattling at the Borders of Russia.
28. CNN.com: Matthew Rojansky and Michael Kofman, Isolated Russia has little left to lose.
29. RFE/RL: Brian Whitmore, The Day Putin Became A Pariah.
30. New York Times: Andrei Kozyrev, Russia’s Coming Regime Change.

UKRAINE

31. Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs: Eighteen Months on: Post-Maidan Ukraine. (interview with Nicolai Petro)
32. Ukraine Today: Poroshenko warns of imminent Russian invasion.
33. TASS: Kiev pulls to front line 70,000 soldiers – DPR head.
34. The Independent (UK): Vladimir Putin wants to ‘eliminate Ukraine – I have no doubt’, claims Ukrainian PM.
35. AFP: Eyeing Russia, US leads fresh military drills in Ukraine.
36. Interfax: LNR, DNR regard Poroshenko’s latest comments on Donbass as imitation of fulfillment of Minsk accords.
37. TASS: Kiev merely imitating adherence to Minsk agreements.
38. Russia Insider: Alexander Mercouris, Eastern Ukraine – A Frozen War. While full-scale fighting has not returned, neither side accepts the status quo or wants to put the conflict aside. It’s rather the negotiated path to peace that has been put aside, particularly by Kiev.
39. Business New Europe: Number of Ukrainians in food poverty increases sixfold in two years.
40. TASS: Ukraine’s average monthly pension stands at $72.5 – pension fund head.
41. RIA Novosti: Almost a million Ukrainian refugees want to stay in Russia – migration service.
42. AFP: Controversial Russian politician named deputy in Ukraine. (Maria Gaidar)
43. Business New Europe: Graham Stack, KYIV BLOG: Black cash still oils Ukrainian politics.
44. Fort Russ: Andrey Vadzhra, Mukachevo: Maidan Hawks, Maidan Doves, and the Prophets of a New Revolution.
45. New York Times: In Bleak Ukraine City, a Duo’s Odd Experiments Win a Niche Online. In Luhansk, two men leverage YouTube fame to shed light on and report about the realities of life in Ukraine’s conflict-torn East.
46. Interfax: MH17 investigators have yet to establish type of missile – Dutch prosecutors.
47. www.rt.com: Alexander Yakovenko, Key points of Russian position on flight MH17.
48. Russia Direct: Dmitry Polikanov, The MH17 tragedy has become a geopolitical game. The call for an international tribunal to investigate the MH17 tragedy is yet another attempt by the West to sway public opinion about Russia.
49. Russia Insider: Danielle Ryan, The Debate Over MH17 Has Been An Embarrassment to The West (and Russia). No, you do not know what happened to MH17. Neither do you. Or you. Or you over there.
50. The Times (UK): US ready to switch off cash supply to Putin. The US proposals mark a dramatic escalation in financial sanctions against Moscow.